The title is a quote from Ayaan Hirsi Ali. Hirsi Ali is a female writer, activist and politician who is known for her stand against female genital mutilation, Islam and for womens’ rights. She should be an idol of the liberal left yet she is anything but. Why? Because she is brave enough to speak out against intolerance wherever it is to be found and in this day age it can be found as much in left wing feminism as in the Koran. Her family fled Somalia, residing in Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia, and Kenya before being granted political asylum in Holland. She now lives in the USA. She renounced her Islamic faith and is now an atheist. Wikipedia describes her as having ‘”classically liberal" views on the economy, foreign policy, crime and immigration with a liberal social stance on drugs, abortion and homosexuality’ which just about sums up my own take on the world. She describes herself as an Atheist, although I prefer to describe myself as a Humanist but it essentially amounts to the same thing, a total rejection of religion and religious beliefs.

It is only since she emigrated to the United States that her views have blossomed into full maturity. Here’s what she has to say about America.

Listen, this is what I have to say on women’s issues in the United States. We are so blessed as women to live in the United States. The best place to be a woman in the world is in the U.S. The best place to be black in the world is in the U.S. Is it perfect? No. Are we confronted with threats? Yes. But it’s the perfect place to fight [them] off. Because in the U.S., we have—besides the law—the majority of the population who accept that we, as women, have absolutely equal rights to men. The best place to be black in the world is here. I cannot imagine what it is like to be a black man living in Saudi Arabia, in Iran—even where the majority of people are black, like Africa. I cannot imagine a better place to be gay than in the U.S. I know that all European countries have accepted gay marriage and here in the U.S. we’re still struggling to accept that. On the other hand, when the jihadists in Europe attack gays in the streets, the governments don’t protect them. The best place to be Jewish in the world, besides the state of Israel, is in the U.S. The best place to be Christian is in the U.S. I don’t know anything else to say in the U.S. I know we’re in an election cycle and I’m supposed to take sides, but I’m not going to.

No wonder she is a hate figure to the liberal left who hate everything American.

She has also upset the liberal left in a strangely paradoxical incident at the Jewish University Brandeis, which first offered her an honourary degree and then withdrew it because of her scathing remarks about Islam. This is what she had to say on the incident.

What seemed to be a small controversy in a place called Brandeis, a Jewish university—it has these enormous geopolitical consequences. And this is a message to the people, the faculty and the students of Brandeis, but also to the other liberals who think that the best way to protect Muslims is to protect them from critical thinking. The answer is: No, actually, the best way to protect Muslims is to give them room to think critically about Islam, to reform it.

If people want to believe in what I regards as superstitious nonsense that is their affair and should be tolerated. But when religions do not respect individual freedom, for example my choice to be an Atheist, then we are in a whole different ball game.

As Hirst Ali says tolerance of Intolerance is nothing but cowardice. Radical Islamists are bullies and there’s only ever been one way to deal with bullies and that is to confront them and not be cowed by them, otherwise you end up with the insane nonsense you have in the UK with the terrible consequences that ensue.

I’ll leave the last word to Hirsi Ali about the overwhelming importance of individual freedom.

I just want to remind the free world that there was a time when they were not free—Europeans and Americans were not free. There was a time when Christian theology and Jewish theology was used to commit atrocious acts. Remember the witch hunts, remember the Protestants. I think Americans associate religion with something positive. In Europe, Protestants were killing other Protestants, Catholics were killing Protestants, Protestants were killing Catholics, just as the Sunni and the Shia are doing now. That is now in the history books. I look forward to a time when atrocities committed in the name of Islam will be in history books and museums and movies, but not happening to real people in real time.